Thursday, November 26, 2009

Iris Marion Young (1949-2006) was a world-renowned feminist moral and political philosopher whose many books and articles spanned more than three decades. She explored issues of social justice and oppression theory, the phenomenology of women's bodies, deliberative democracy and questions of terrorism, violence, international law and the role of the national security state. Her works have been of great interest to those both in the analytic and Continental philosophical tradition, and her roots range from critical theory (Habermas and Marcuse), and phenomenology (Beauvoir and Merleau Ponty) to poststructural psychoanalytic feminism (Kristeva and Ingaray). This anthology of writings aims to carry on the fruitful lines of thought she created and contains works by both well-known and younger authors who explore and engage critically with aspects of her work.

Tuesday, November 24, 2009

The Oxford University Press has published a 10-volume "Oxford Handbooks of Political Science" (2006-2009), edited by Robert E. Goodin. In a new supplementary volume with selected chapters from the ten volumes, Robert Goodin has written a chapter on "the state of the discipline" which contains lists of the "leaders" of the sub-disciplines of political science (defined as the 1 percent of people whose names appear most frequently in the indices of the volumes).

Monday, November 23, 2009

Gerard Delanty provides a comprehensive assessment of the idea of cosmopolitanism in social and political thought which links cosmopolitan theory with critical social theory. He argues that cosmopolitanism has a critical dimension which offers a solution to one of the weaknesses in the critical theory tradition: failure to respond to the challenges of globalization and intercultural communication. Critical cosmopolitanism, he proposes, is an approach that is not only relevant to social scientific analysis but also normatively grounded in a critical attitude. Delanty’s argument for a critical, sociologically oriented cosmopolitanism aims to avoid, on the one hand, purely normative conceptions of cosmopolitanism and, on the other, approaches that reduce cosmopolitanism to the empirical expression of diversity. He attempts to take cosmopolitan theory beyond the largely Western context with which it has generally been associated, claiming that cosmopolitan analysis must now take into account non-Western expressions of cosmopolitanism.

1. The Rise and Decline of Classical Cosmopolitanism2. Contemporary Cosmopolitanism and Social Theory3. Global Ethics, Solidarity and the Problem of Violence4. Cosmopolitan Citizenship and the Post-Sovereign State5. Multiculturalism from a Cosmopolitan Perspective6. Religion in a Cosmopolitan Society7. Cosmopolitanism, Modernity and Global History8. Cosmopolitanism and European Political Community9. Europe as a Borderland10. Conclusion: Intercultural Dialogue in a Post-Western World

Gerard Delanty is Professor of Sociology and Social & Political Thought, the Department of Sociology, University of Essex, UK.

Excerpts:Jürgen Habermas: "I’m, in the first place, maintaining that there are differences in kind between religious and secular reasons. Secondly, I’m maintaining that religion makes, in relation to the legitimation of constitutional essentials and so forth, a difference because of the historical fusion of religion with politics that had to be differentiated out."

Charles Taylor: "I don’t see how you can track in different kinds of discourse—unless we are talking about other kinds of discourse, where I’m saying to you, “Well, I had this great experience, a vision of the Virgin or St. Therese,” and so on—Of course, at that point, that discourse is directly related to this kind of experience. Certain kinds of discourse, if I were trying to describe to you a religious experience, would be directly related to that experience. But the kind of discourse we’re sharing—Martin Luther King had a certain discourse about the U.S. Constitution and its entailments which weren’t being followed through. And then he had a very powerful Christian discourse, referring to Exodus, referring to liberation. Nobody had any trouble understanding this. They didn’t have to imagine or be able to understand or conceive the deeper experiences that he might have had—you know, the experience in the kitchen when he decided he had to go on."

Jürgen Habermas: "I do want to save also the imperative character of religious speech in the public sphere, because I’m convinced that there are buried intuitions that can be uncovered by a moving speech. Listening to Martin Luther King, it makes no difference whether you are secular or not. You understand what he means. He is speaking in the public and was killed for that. This is not our difference. Our difference is that in one of your phrases, at least in the paper, you said there is a call for a deeper grounding of a secular justification of constitutional essentials in terms of popular sovereignty and human rights. This is our difference. There I think I could not follow you...."

Jürgen Habermas: "I am raised as a Lutheran Protestant and now I am an agnostic...."

Charles Taylor: "If you want an emphasis on negotiation, where we put together our charter of rights from different people, it can’t be in Benthamite language, it can’t be simply in Kantian language, it can’t be in Christian language. What Jürgen calls “secular” I’ll call “neutral.” That’s how I see it. I see it as absolutely indispensable."

Thomas Pogge is Professor of Philosophy and International Affairs at Yale University. His latest book is "World Poverty and Human Rights", 2nd, expanded edition (Polity Press 2008). In sping 2010, Cambridge University Press will publish his new book "Politics as Usual: What Lies behind the Pro-Poor Rhetoric". Polity Press plans a book with critical essays on Pogge - "Thomas Pogge and his Critics", edited by Alison Jaggar.

"Reading his statement, one gets the sense that his initial movement away from the religion of his youth hardened into something much deeper—and more polemical—as he matured. By the end of his life, Rawls could find nothing good to say about Christianity. He even mounts a moral critique of the idea of salvation itself, on the grounds that it is a recipe for spiritual isolation and self-absorption. "Christianity is a solitary religion," he writes; "each is saved and damned individually, and we naturally focus on our own salvation to the point where nothing else might seem to matter.""

"In the introduction, Joshua Cohen and Thomas Nagel observe that "those who have studied Rawls's work, and even more, those who knew him personally, are aware of a deeply religious temperament that informed his life and writings." That may well have been the case. But the statement shows that Rawls was not religious in any conventional sense.The book contains none of the sentiments generally expressed in religious practice—not even the reverence for "higher powers" that has often characterized the outlook of deists in the past. It's possible that Rawls simply does not express himself well on this subject, but I don't think it is any accident that he is silent about everything—including the question of creation—that might inspire a sense of indebtedness or gratitude. The affective side of religion was just what he wanted to get away from.Would Rawls have liked his outlook on religion to be shared more widely? Did he think we would be better off if this were the case? Probably, but as an American living in the latter part of the 20th century, he could hardly have been under any illusions about the likelihood of this occurring. Nor does he seek to be a public advocate for the sort of alternative to conventional religion he favored. He kept that to himself, treating it as the private matter I am sure he thought religion should be."

Jeremy Waldron argued for the regulation of hate speech to reinforce society’s collective commitment to uphold one another’s personal dignity. In making his case, Waldron compared existing hate speech laws from advanced democracies around the world and concluded that they can be an effective way to deal with the “visible defamations of social groups". In the third lecture, Waldron addressed several important counter arguments to his view of hate speech regulation, including Ronald Dworkin's arguments in his foreword to "Extreme Speech and Democracy" (Oxford University Press, 2009), edited by James Weinstein and Ivan Hare.

Jeremy Waldron is University Professor at New York University School of Law.

Martha Nussbaum is Professor of Law and Ethics at the Department of Philosophy, School of Law, University of Chicago. In 1994, Martha Nussbaum published "The Therapy of Desire. Theory and Practice in Hellenistic Ethics" (Princeton University Press, 1994). It has been re-issued this year with a new introduction by Nussbaum.

Monday, November 09, 2009

The book analyzes the reforms undertaken to bring the EU 'closer to the citizens'. It documents elements of democratization and reduction of arbitrary power. However, democracy requires that the citizens can approve or reject the laws they are subjected to. Since the institutional as well as the civic conditions under which a public justification process would be deemed legitimate are not in place, European post-national democracy remains an unaccomplished mission.

Do we need a new economic framework? This will be a large public event in which leading academics and practitioners will catalyse discussion on how economics must change in the light of the financial crisis and of criticisms that economic progress does not advance human well-being. Speakers will draw on proposals made in Sen’s recent book 'The Idea of Justice' as well as their own work. Confirmed speakers include Amartya Sen, John Broome, Stefan Dercon, Will Hutton, Peter Lilley, Avner Offer, James Purnell, Angus Ritchie, and Sabina Alkire. Input from the floor will be welcome. Chaired by Ngaire Woods and Frances Cairncross.

(2) Distinguished Public Lecture: "The Pursuit of Justice"November 19, 5.00pm, Sheldonian Theatre, University of Oxford.

The lecture will be chaired by Lord Patten of Barnes, Chancellor of the University.

9:30-11:00: Discussion of Amartya Sen’s lecture ‘The Pursuit of Justice’ This is a time for philosophers and political scientists in particular to express academic comments or questions to Professor Sen regarding his lecture the previous afternoon, or indeed regarding his recent book The Idea of Justice on which that lecture draws. Members of the Faculty of Philosophy will initiate the discussion, after which the floor will be open.

11:30-1:00: Key issuesIn this session, brief papers will be presented to stimulate discussion on certain issues related to The Idea of Justice, including one paper entitled 'Sen on the nature of justice and the grounds of human rights' by John Tasioulas.

From Plato to Max Weber, the attempt to understand political judgement took the form of a struggle to define the relationship between politics and morals. This book by leading international scholars in the fields of history, philosophy and politics restores the subject to a place at the very centre of political theory and practice. Whilst it provides a range of perspectives on the theme of practical reason, it also explores a series of related problems in philosophy and political thought, raising fundamental questions about democracy, trust, the nature of statesmanship, and the relations between historical and political judgement. In the process, the volume reconsiders some classic debates in political theory – about equality, authority, responsibility and ideology – and offers new and original treatments of key figures in the history of political thought, including Thucydides, Montaigne, Locke, Smith, Burke and Marx.

Part I. The Character of Political Judgement1. What is Political Judgement? - Raymond Geuss2. Sticky Judgement and the Role of Rhetoric - Victoria McGeer and Philip Pettit3. Theory and Practice: The Revolution in Political Judgement - Richard Bourke

Part II. Trust, Judgement and Consent4. On Trusting the Judgement of our Rulers - Quentin Skinner5. Adam Smith's History of Law and Government as Political Theory - Istvan Hont6. Marxism in Translation: Critical Reflections on Indian Radical Thought - Sudipta Kaviraj

Global Security: Partnership Of Equals?Chair: Alan RusbridgerTowards a Solution in Palestine - Robert MalleyAnd in Iraq and Afghanistan – Rory StewartEurope and North America: Partnership of Equals? - Margaret MacMillan

Is the Left Finished?Jonathan Freedland, Godfrey Hodgson, Marc Stears

Rangoon, Rwanda And Beyond; Upholding Democracy And Human RightsChair: Robert SilversIs There a Right to Intervene? - Ronald Dworkin and Anthony DworkinHuman Rights: Conflicting Visions - Robert BadinterBeyond the West - Timothy Garton Ash

The essay is both a contribution to the ongoing Sloterdijk/Honneth debate on the relation between the so-called "productive" and "unproductive" citizens in the German welfare society (see here and here) and a comment on the results of the German elections on September 27.